ZF Friedrichshafen

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ZF Friedrichshafen AG Innovationen, die sich rechnen - Innovations of Great Value
Type	Public company: Aktiengesellschaft (AG)
Founded	20 August 1915
Headquarters	Friedrichshafen, Germany
Key people	Hans-Georg Härter (CEO)
Industry	Automotive
Products	Automotive
Employees	55,050 (2006)
Website	ZF.com

ZF Friedrichshafen AG is a leading worldwide supplier of driveline and chassis technology. With 122 production locations in 26 countries and approximately 55,000 employees worldwide, ZF provides components and systems to the automotive, commercial vehicle, off-highway/construction, marine, rail, elevator, automation and aviation industries.

1 Products
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Products

ZF products include automatic and manual transmissions for cars, trucks, buses and construction equipment; chassis components (ball joints, tie rods, cross-axis joints, stabilizer bars, control arms); shocks and struts; electronic damping systems including Continuous Damping Control (CDC), Active Roll Stabilization (ARS); clutches; torque converters; axle drives; and industrial drives.

Through the ZF Lenksysteme Division (a 50-50 joint venture between ZF and Bosch), steering components and systems are produced, including steering columns, gears and pumps; Electric Power Steering (EPS); and Active Steering.

With the rise in popularity of the semi-automatic transmission in trucks and buses, ZF introduced the ZF-AS Tronic.

The company is also known for its manual and automatic truck and bus transmissions. ZF transmissions are the ones used most commonly in buses. Among the most popular products for buses is the automatic Ecomat transmission range which was introduced in 1980.

ZF Lemförder, ZF Sachs, and Boge are all divisions/business units of ZF specializing in original equipment and aftermarket solutions for the automotive industry. ZF Group North American Operations is headquartered in Northville, Mich. ZF Group Asia Pacific Operations is headquartered in Shanghai, PR China.

Traditionally, ZF invests approximately 5 percent of annual sales into research and development. The company's six worldwide research and development sites are designed to provide advance technology on a regional basis.

[edit] History

The company was founded in 1915 in Friedrichshafen, Germany to produce gears for zeppelins and other airships but moved into the automobile market by 1918.

In the 1960s, the company began supplying transmissions to the major German automakers, including DKW and BMW, as well as Peugeot and Alfa Romeo. A popular automatic transmission (the 3 HP 20) was introduced in 1969 which was designed to be an easy swap with the company's manual transmissions. Worldwide subsidiaries and factories were opened in the 1970s, and the company moved into India, South Korea, and became a major supplier to Ford in the 1980s. The company expanded into China in the 1990s.

In 2001, ZF introduced the world's first six-speed automatic transmission for passenger cars in the BMW 7 Series. Today, ZF produces around 1 million six-speed automatic transmissions annually.